The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph Over Plutocracy That Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970 (Paperback)

Description

The Occupy Wall Street protests have captured America's political imagination. Polls show that two-thirds of the nation now believe that America's enormous wealth ought to be "distributed more evenly." However, almost as many Americans--well over half--feel the protests will ultimately have "little impact" on inequality in America. What explains this disconnect? Most Americans have resigned themselves to believing that the rich simply always get their way.

Except they don't.

A century ago, the United States hosted a super-rich even more domineering than ours today. Yet fifty years later, that super-rich had almost entirely disappeared. Their majestic mansions and estates had become museums and college campuses, and America had become a vibrant, mass middle class nation, the first and finest the world had ever seen.

Americans today ought to be taking no small inspiration from this stunning change. After all, if our forbears successfully beat back grand fortune, why can't we? But this transformation is inspiring virtually no one. Why? Because the story behind it has remained almost totally unknown, until now.

This lively popular history will speak directly to the political hopelessness so many Americans feel. By tracing how average Americans took down plutocracy over the first half of the 20th Century--and how plutocracy came back-- The Rich Don't Always Win will outfit Occupy Wall Street America with a deeper understanding of what we need to do to get the United States back on track to the American dream.

Praise For…

"Labor journalist Pizzigati makes the case that graduated tax rates and strong unions once led to an economic golden age for average Americans—and could do so again. A flawed but ambitious, readable look at economic reformism over the last century."—Kirkus Reviews

"Make room for The Rich Don't Always Win on your book shelf right next to Howard Zinn's The People's History of America. In his lively, engrossing new book, Sam Pizzigati tells the story of class inequality in America, from the robber barons to today's "1 %." The title alone is a refreshing reminder that there have been times when the middle class pushed back against the growth of plutocracy -- and won. We can do that again and, as Pizzigati makes clear, we have to."—Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed

"Only 50 years ago, America 'soaked' the rich with a 91 percent income tax. And guess what? America prospered! Not just the rich, but ordinary families. With colorful detail, Sam Pizzigati tells us why we should revisit that policy of prosperity for ALL, rather that for the plutocratic few."—Jim Hightower, national radio commentator and New York Times best-selling author

"Bold, thorough, and above all inspiring—an energizing and spirited reminder of what it took, and what it will take, to once again make ours a nation of equals."—Gar Alperovitz, author of America Beyond Capitalism, and Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland

"This inspiring history offers a bold blueprint for today’s equality movements. We beat back the powerful rule of the wealthy to end the first Gilded Age. We can beat back our current Gilded Age, too, and reverse the extreme inequalities of wealth and power that undermine all that we care about." —Chuck Collins, Institute for Policy Studies, author of 99 to 1: How Wealth Inequality is Wrecking the World and What We Can Do About It

"Overlooking the current political-economic landscape of the United States, one might perhaps be forgiven for thinking that the country's wealthiest have gamed the system such that they will always come out on top, to the detriment of the rest of us. Labor journalist Pizzigati reviews the history of the 20th century in order to remind us that such sentiments might have seemed equally valid at the start of the that century, but that a broad group of activists, union organizers, political coalitions, and others fought a long-running battle to curtail the privileges of the plutocrats and to create the conditions for an unprecedented expansion of the middle class."—BOOK NEWS, Inc.

“Sam Pizzigati's new book, The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class 1900-1970, could therefore not come at a better time to rejuvenate the issue of income disparity and what to do about it. Employing a staggering compilation of primary sources, this exceptionally well-researched book reveals the previously unknown story of Americans who fought to overthrow plutocracy in the early 20th century.”—Foriegn Policy in Focus